Welcome to this week's Rider Support. Top of the show. We're starting off with a rider who spent 15,000 on a road bike, and it hasn't made him any faster. Ouch. Okay, question number one. Anthony, I spent $15,000 on a top-of-the-line bike, but I'm still getting dropped on group rides. Did I just waste all that money? Yes and no. No, I think no. I I think definitely you're not alone. This has happened to a lot of people. We've even had questions in the past. So many riders go through exactly what you're feeling right now. You spend big, you get the dream bike you've been eyeing up for a long, long time, and then you get dropped. It's absolutely brutal. So, did you waste the money? No. But maybe the money wasn't spent on what matters most. The reality is fitness is going to beat tech gear every single time. It always has and it always will. You can have the fastest, lightest, most arrow drivetrain optimized bike in the world, but if some kid shows up on a $400 hacker and he's just a better athlete or he's just train the engine better, he's going to drop you and it's not going to save you. But that doesn't mean the bike is a bad investment because a bike, it makes riding much more enjoyable having a nice bike. It does make you more efficient. It's going to motivate you to train harder, which I think is the big one. Especially if you have a little bit of a imposter syndrome right now. Do you feel like you don't deserve this bike? Instead of shunning away from that, like lean into that and say, "Okay, I need to up my game to justify owning a bike like this." Which isn't the reality, but you can use it to fuel yourself in a sort of perverse way. But yeah, no bike is going to replace structure training and time in the saddle. If you're getting dropped, it's normally your aerobic engine, like your threshold power, your endurance, your group ride skills, your ability to move around the group, or your repeatability, like your ability to recover from hard efforts, short break, and go again for a hard effort. Like the little rollers we have on the Saturday spin, my advice, if I could put it into a tight little eggshell, it' be embrace where you're at right now. It's just a snapshot. Build your fitness systematically. Follow a plan. work on your bunch skills so you're saving those extra watts and use that expensive bike as a tool to get a little bit faster, not as you maybe initially intended as a shortcut. Yeah, I mean I agree with all of those points, particularly the one that having a nice bike does motivate you. I mean, we are riding the most incredible bikes this year, Reap. They're sponsoring the show. I personally have never owned a new bike. This is my first ever new bike that I owned. I always got handme-down from Anthony. You were lucky to have them. I was so lucky. Thank you very much. And they were they Anony's bikes fit me. If we tinker around with, you know, the stem and all of that kind of jazz, but having that new bike day, having it there, it's all shiny and new. It's all your responsibility. And you don't want you're not you're not going to be it's not going to be sitting in the corner and you're using it as a close horse. You're going to get out on that bike. So, um I don't think this I'm with you, Anthony. I don't think he made a mistake, but yeah, I think he needs to start putting the hard work in now to justify that purchase. Yeah. Also, like you it's like there's always going to be someone faster. So, the peer comparison is a dangerous little game to get into. Like what's the saying? You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. No matter how much work you put in, there's always going to be someone faster than you. So, it's like learning to appreciate where you're at at the moment. Your fitness also could be a lot worse right now than it is. Yeah, absolutely. And as I always say to Anthony, sometimes I see you going over and back in your mind about, oh, will I buy those cycling shoes? They're like 500 quid. Will I buy this for the bike? It's x amount. And I'm always say to you, when it comes to cycling, I don't care if you spend the money because I know that it's going to get used and you're going to get great value and great joy out of it.
What about new golf clubs? No, I would maybe have a little bit of a problem with that. But if you are if it's bringing you loads of joy, if it's not putting you into a hole, I mean, we've had um people that we knew that bought like 12 15,000 bikes and didn't even tell their misses. They just kind of squirreled money away and bought the bike and kind of claiming on the bread line and he was on the bread line. So, we're absolutely not advocating that. He just arrived in the country, two children, one special needs. Yeah. And he was and he bought He didn't bought a 12 and a half grand bike. I when he told me that I was like I I don't I'm in absolute shock here. I don't know what to say. When I worked in my old company, all of the guys who were cyclists used to get every component that they bought new parameters, new wheels, new group sets, like get it all sent to the work address. So no, there would be no kind of, you know, evidence of kit arriving to the house. So as long as you're not putting yourself under pressure, enjoy your beautiful new bike. And as Anthony said, maybe put a little bit more effort into training, get a coach, and you'll be beating those guys up the climbs in no time. Okay, next question. Anthony, do you think the current anti-doping systems are strong enough that we should believe per performances like Pagachers or are we trusting too easily again because the sport wants a clean hero so badly? Ooh, this is a tough question. It's probably the most sensitive question in sport at the moment when we ask is Pagatoa riding clean because what we're really asking is about the credibility of modern sport. First, it is important to understand that cultural historic context to doping and cycling. Like the 1990s culminating in the Fina affair in 1998 into the early 2000s, they tarnished the reputation. But cycling now isn't the same as cycling then. Like we have we have much tougher testing protocols. Out of competition testing is much more frequent than it was. Biological passports now track people's blood values. And the culture this for me is probably the most important. I I get to chat to guys, coaches, athletes all the time. My friends were riders. The culture has shifted. It's not a prerequisite for a young athlete coming into the sport to dope. That was a part of the conversation for a long time. You needed to be willing to have this. And I had friends who literally sat there with a Belgian director and they said, "You want to be on the team? This is what it takes. You don't want to be on the team, there's the door." And athletes aren't been asked to make that tough choice anymore. Now, specifically on Pagotaa, nothing credible has emerged to suggest that he's using any performance-enhancing substance. He's tested maybe one of the most tested athletes in the world. His performance numbers, they are mindblowing, but they're not within the limits of implausibility. Like his times up climbs, like his Mi time was significantly slower this year than Alejandro Valverde's 2014 time. His power figures again, brilliant, but again, not implausible. I think cycling's past means we get to be a little bit cynical and get to have a little bit of skepticism about these performances. Fans are right to ask hard questions and demand transparency and have stronger testing. But we should also recognize that exceptional generational talents do come along every now and then when you combine a really well-funded team in UAE where no stone is left unturned with nutrition, aerodynamics, equipment and you combine that with a generational talent. You have maybe in making the greatest bike rider ever to ride a bike. Oh, I'm just I'm I'm just at home as this air is watching the YouTube comments and Spotify comments rolling in about how we have it all wrong and cycling is still the dirtiest sport out there. And I'm with you, Anthony, and I like to take Paga and all the other riders at face value with so far as like clean or unclean. And unfortunately, we do cycling does have a we're we're experiencing a hangover from those many years of the sport. I mean, there's loads of sports that were dirty, are dirty, will continue to be. Um, but cycling just seems to always pop up number one as the sport that is filthy almost, isn't it? Armstrong contextualized the significance of Pagacha's leaz baston leazge win.
So, I do think that the pre-activation does work. As you said, it doesn't have to be, you know, an hour. It's three minutes. That's all I really have to do of activation on my legs. And if you're looking, I think it's worth it if you have any niggles or injuries to go to a physio and talk to them about this because I certainly have found it helps a lot. There's loads of good uh on YouTube pre-activation. Dan Martin done one years ago. Oh, no way. where he's in the video. Uh I think it's like more like a 10-minute routine he uses before his rides, but it's up on Garmin's channel, I think. Okay. Yeah, go check that out. Roadman, whether you're a weekend warrior or a world tour rider, the right tools can make all the difference. Enter 4's precision 3 plus power meter. The latest innovation from 4i, designed to help you reach peak performance. The Precision 3 Plus power meter is a compact yet powerful unit. It weighs just 9 g and it's packed with features that set it apart, including integration with Apple's fine mind network, giving you the peace of mind by letting you track your power meter wherever it is. Plus, you've got up to 800 hours of battery life. We all know that accuracy is key, and 4y delivers a groundbreaking plus or minus 1% accuracy thanks to their unique 3D strain gauge technology. For those seeking even more data, the Precision 3 Plus Pro meter offers dualsided power meter metrics, giving you detailed insights into pedaling efficiency, torque effectiveness, and left right balance. For Eyes offers versatile product options to suit your needs. Choose from ride ready parameters with pre-installed units on Shimano cranks or up for factory installed parameter where you send in your crank set for a custom installation. Ready to elevate your cycling game? Trust Fori's Precision 3 Plus parameter. Precision, performance, and peace of mind allinone. Learn more by visiting 4i Iii Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.com. That's 4i Iii iii.com. I'm going to put that in the description down below. Okay, next question. Hi Sarah, I heard you're riding Badlands in September. Very impressive. I'm getting more into gravel myself and I was wondering what gearing setup are you planning to use for it and actually would it be different from what Anthony is going to run when he's racing it? I always hear people debate between a one by versus a two by big cassette versus tighter gearing. But what really matters for an ultra tough event like Badlands? Just a great idea for something else we need to put into the members area on the website. We need a gear rollout calculator. This was old school. Sheldon Brown had a gear roll out calculator. Comes from the track. So, do you know what gear roll out is? So, it's one revolution and then it's how many meters you cover in that re. So, if you take a pedal at the 12:00 position, you turn the pedal one full rotation around, finish back at the 12:00 position, mark and chalk your starting point, mark and chalk your finishing point, and then measure the distance. We call that roll out. So that's why when you're pursuiting, you would change because you it's confusing to just say, "Hey, go I'm going to go from a 50 to a 51 on the front and a 12 to a 11 on the back." It's like, have you gone up or down? Like it's hard to figure out if you've gone up or down when you're changing the two variables because the back is it makes a significant more difference than changing on the front. Like going from a 12 to an 11 sprocket on the back is not the same as going from a 52 to a 53 on the front. So it's a significant difference. So roll out is how they talk about it in inches. But we need to make the Sheldon Brown equivalent of that roll out calculator. So when we're having these conversations, we can just say, "Hey, go to go to." Okay. But anyway, uh the question is around one by or two by for me and you. Both of us are running one by. Well, you haven't fully agreed on your setup, but I'm pretty sure you're going to run one by as well. Yeah, I think so. I'm a huge fan of one by because I have used your one by in the past and I just think it takes out so much faffing about going up and down, little ring, big ring, little ring, big ring.